Jennifer P. Brown

Trump's Wildly Fascistic Posting Spree Isn't Just a Distraction From Epstein Donald Trump went on a fascistic posting spree on Sunday amid uproar over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, fantasizing about Democrats being arrested.

Rolling Stone: "Trump’s fascistic fantasies about making his enemies — from Democratic lawmakers to late-night hosts — suffer aren’t just a distraction ... They’re part of the very real authoritarian project he and his administration have been actively carrying out for the past six months ..."

Donald Trump Stages an Oval Office Mugging Race-baiting South Africa’s visiting leader was a perfect summation of Trump’s racially charged second term.

Susan Glasser: I could hardly bear to watch the “highly choreographed onslaught,” as the BBC somewhat delicately put it, but the scene did have one benefit—as a reminder of how explicitly Trump has ... defined the goal of his Presidency as a sort of racial-justice quest for white people.

NPR’s Steven Inskeep: “If I understand this correctly, the US president has launched a trade war against the world, believes he can force the EU and China to meet his terms, is determined to annex Canada and Greenland, but is powerless before the sovereign might of El Salvador. Is that it?”

What’s more vacuous than an endless vacuum? It’s Lauren Sánchez and Katy Perry’s party in space | Marina Hyde The all-female Blue Origin flight on Monday broke boundaries and set records in the spouting of girlboss gibberish, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Who’s In and Who’s Out at the Naval Academy’s Library? (Gift Article) An order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office resulted in a purge of books critical of racism but preserved volumes defending white power.

“The Trump administration’s decision to order the banning of certain books from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library is a case study in ideological censorship, alumni and academics say.”

Standing Up: It Looks Like This. Individuals are taking the lead. They can show institutions the way. Ongoing chronicles of resistance.

"Americans as individuals seem suddenly willing in larger numbers to 'meet the moment.' More and more people are acting as they might sometime be asked, 'What did you do, when it mattered?' And they’ll have an answer."

"Watching Trump’s Rose Garden performance yesterday, it was hard to believe what I was seeing: flawed economics, inaccurate history and cockamamie calculations used to justify the most wrong-headed and damaging policy decision in decades. Trump's “Liberation Day” was more like ruination day."

A great organization. Good for them to have your talent.

Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada Jason Stanley, who says grandmother fled Berlin with his father in 1939, says US may become ‘fascist dictatorship’

What does it say that a scholar of fascism is leaving the US right now? Said Stanley: “Part of it is you’re leaving because ultimately, it is like leaving Germany in 1932, 33, 34. There’s resonance: my grandmother left Berlin with my father in 1939. So it’s a family tradition.”

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Student, Is Detained by ICE The university was told that the student’s visa had been terminated, its president said in a late-night email to students and faculty members.

“Nobody should be disappeared from the streets of Somerville — or anywhere in America,” Jessie Rossman, legal director of the A.C.L.U. of Massachusetts, said.

March 22, 2025 Perhaps in response to the growing outcry over last weekend’s rendition of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under a legal justification a federal judge has found questionable, President Donald Trump...

"At the White House, Governor Mills was not only reinforcing the rule of law in the face of an authoritarian who is working to shatter that principle; she was standing up to a bully who claims to be protecting women and girls but who has bragged about sexual assault ..."

Andy Beshear Slams Gavin Newsom for Having Steve Bannon on Podcast “I don’t think we should give him oxygen on any platform — ever, anywhere,” the Democratic governor of Kentucky said of President Trump’s former chief strategist.

“We shouldn’t be afraid to talk and to debate just about anyone. But Steve Bannon espouses hatred and anger and even at some points violence, and I don’t think we should give him oxygen on any platform — ever, anywhere.”

Uncertainty Is Trump’s Brand. But What if He Already Told Us Exactly What He’s Going to Do? “Tariff Man” is gonna tariff—and other lessons from the predictably unpredictable President’s return to power.

"If there’s one truth Donald Trump seems to have absorbed in his seventy-eight years, it is that there are advantages to lying all the time—foremost among them that no one knows when you’re bluffing and when you actually mean what you say.

Cuba Sends Doctors, the US Sends Sanctions The United States calls Cuba’s medical internationalism

Millions will suffer ... the seventh measure targeting Cuba in one month, has international consequences; for decades tens of thousands of Cuban medical professionals have been posted in around 60 countries, far more than the World Health Organization’s workforce.

ICE arrests Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University protests, his lawyer says A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead last spring's protests at Columbia University has been arrested by federal immigration agents.

The arrest appeared to be among the first known actions under Trump’s pledge to deport intern'l students who joined protests against the war in Gaza last spring. His administration has claimed participants forfeited their rights to remain in US by supporting Hamas, a terror org.

America’s Flex We cover President Trump’s new tariffs.

... "it’s about America’s alliances in general. To bend other countries to his will, Trump has suspended military aid to Ukraine, publicly hectored world leaders, threatened to withdraw U.S. troops from Europe and pulled out of international groups like the World Health Organization."

March 3, 2025 As seemed evident even at the time, the ambush of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday was a setup to provide justification for cutting off congressionally approved aid to...

"It was for a similar impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds for Ukraine, holding them back until Zelensky agreed to tilt the 2020 election by smearing Joe Biden, that the House of Representatives impeached Trump in 2019. ...Trump chose to repeat that performance, in public this time ..."

sure did

February 28, 2025 Today, President Donald Trump ambushed Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in an attack that seemed designed to give the White House an excuse for siding with Russia in its war on Ukraine.

"Trump referred to what he calls the 'Russia, Russia, Russia hoax' that Russia had worked to elect him in 2016. That effort, though, was not a hoax: the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 released an exhaustive report detailing that effort."

Are You Still Gonna Pledge Allegiance to the Shithole Country? Hello. Yesterday, Donald Trump grunted and squeezed and flushed right down his cheap, faux gold-plated toilet the legacy of every good, and even every mediocre, president the United States has ever ha...

"The bravest person in the world — who may well eventually be hanged from a lamp post by invading marauders for his historic, heroic attempt to save his besieged nation — did not bend. ... he reduced the president ... to a frothing, sullen tub of a bully who had been exposed for what he is."

'I don't have anybody': Adoptive teen son of a KY governor talks about life on his own • Kentucky Lantern Jonah Bevin, adoptive son of former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, is speaking out to expose the abuse he and other boys suffered in a facility in Jamaica.

Remember disgraced former Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's adopted-then-abandoned son who was sent away to abuse in Jamaica? @dyetter.bsky.social has an excellent followup interview with him.

kentuckylantern.com/2025/02/28/i...

Judge finds mass firings of federal probationary workers were likely unlawful A federal judge in San Francisco finds the mass firings of probationary employees were likely unlawful.

"U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered the Office of Personnel Management to inform certain federal agencies that it had no authority to order the firings of probationary employees, including at the Department of Defense."

Why Aren’t We in the Streets? On Trump the Almighty and his so-far quiescent capital.

"... now that so little apparently stands in his way. Will he ... investigate and imprison political enemies? Or ... use the ... military to crack down on political dissent at home, given that he’s fired top generals and wants to replace them with others willing to profess loyalty to him ... ?"

February 26, 2025 This morning, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought and Office of Personnel Management acting director Charles Ezell sent a memo to the heads of departments and agencies.

"Make no mistake: This order transforms federal spending by taking it away from Congress, where the Constitution placed it, and moves it to the individual who sits atop the Department of Government Efficiency."

21 DOGE staffers resign, saying they won't help 'dismantle' public services Twenty-one members of the United States DOGE Service have resigned, they said in an anonymous letter, citing DOGE's ongoing work dramatically reshaping the federal government.

"We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services. We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE's actions," the anonymous staffers write.

White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump In announcing plans to handpick the reporters who can ask the president questions, the White House is breaking decades of precedent.

"The White House Correspondents’ Association, a group representing journalists who cover the administration, has long determined on its own which reporters would participate in the daily pool."

Trump Uses Lies to Lay the Groundwork for Radical Change Condoms for Gaza? Ukraine started the war with Russia? The president’s manipulations of the truth lay the groundwork for radical change.

“If the USAID is stupid enough to send condoms to a Palestinian terrorist group, he claims, it deserves to be dismantled. If recruiting people other than white men to work in the airline sector compromises safety, such programs should be eliminated. …” and on and on

Danielle Sassoon: Prosecutor resigns after being ordered to drop NYC mayor case Danielle Sassoon quit rather than follow an order to drop a corruption case against Eric Adams, saying it set " dangerous precedent".

"Danielle Sassoon, a conservative lawyer recently promoted by President Donald Trump, said dismissing the case would set a 'breathtaking and dangerous precedent.'"

The pope rebukes Trump over migrant deportations and refutes VP Vance's theology In a strongly worded letter to Catholic bishops in the United States, Pope Francis is taking to task the Trump administration's stance on migrants, calling it a "major crisis."

"After Vance accused the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops of resettling immigrants to receive federal funding, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan called the vice president's remarks 'scurrilous' and 'nasty.'"

Opinion | Look Past Elon Musk’s Chaos. There’s Something More Sinister at Work. Everything is content.

"DOGE is a democracy wrecking machine. It is targeting the government’s plumbing, the infrastructure that makes the state reliable and legitimate for millions of Americans."